Guess Who

(PPP)

PG-13,

97 minutes,

Southwinds 12

Loosely based on the Tracey and Hepburn classic Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?, this remake starring Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher is actually both interesting and entertaining.

A young black woman brings her fiancé, a white man, home to meet her family. Her father is not thrilled about this, and it takes the course of the film for him to admit that it’s because he’s white. There are lots of interesting scenes, and many of them are brave for a film such as this, especially a dinner scene when Mac wants to hear “black jokes” from Kutcher. The pairing of Mac and Kutcher is brilliant, and the two work off each other with hilarious results. Kutcher puts in a surprisingly natural performance without repeating the character we know from Punk’d and That 70s Show. But Mac is truly the star of the film, and the rest of the characters react off his personality and charisma.

The film doesn’t take itself as seriously as the original, but at the same time isn’t slapstick humor. It deals with other issues besides race, such as gender roles in the family, marriage and changing generations. In many ways it would be better to compare this to the Father of the Bride films rather than to the original — it is just as embarrassing, funny and heartwarming, but with a deeper political streak.

An interesting, thought-provoking movie that will keep you laughing.